VicPergola

About Vic Pergola

Vic has over 30 years of executive experience as senior manager and business owner for both for-profit and non-profit operations, including 20 years of consulting and counseling. He combines depth of character with exacting expertise across a spectrum of skills, and digs in deeply to identify and resolves needs. Vic is passionate about success, leadership development and entrepreneurship. He is a gifted public speaker and can read in six languages.
Vic is a certified Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Counselor with more than 3,000 executives counseled over the last 20 years; he conducts over 40 executive leadership workshops and spiritual formation workshops each year.

Bucephalus–Unstoppable!
It’s horse season. At the movies we have “War Horse,” at the track we have the thrilling finish to the Belmont, in this season we have the disappointment of injury and no subsequent Triple Crown run.

Bucephalus is the ancient horse of glory, strength, and honor. He is Alexander’s horse, riding into every battle with him, and dying at 30 in the battle of Hydaspes. As with Secretariat, Seabiscuit, and Triple Crown winners, Bucephalus is unstoppable.

There is a great mosaic of Alexander on Bucephalus charging at the Persian king at the battle of Issus (one of several battles that shifted the entire course of history).

Soooo. . .a couple of simple reflections:

Listen to Alexander or any jockey (past or present). They are one with their horse in a mystical unity of purpose & intent. Where is my point of unity?
Mythical horses are unstoppable (past mythic or present mythic). What is my intent and attitude?
Mythical riders and their mounts train heavily. What “praxis” (practices/training) do I need to implement as a common discipline?
Mythical mounts and their riders adjust to the surprising circumstance. What surprises do I confront and how to do adjust and answer?

We live in interesting times and our lives & careers are often dominated by anxiety, ambiguity, and ambivalence.
Anxiety:
This is life’s great stopper overflowing into business; simply look at the market fluctuations, the international debt crises, the continual worry over hiring and expanding, the risks, the need for an economic safe harbor. We have pills for it, we work it out at the gym, and we look over our shoulders; who or what is gaining on us (Satchel Paige)?
Ambiguity:
All the management gurus tell us that we need to handle ambiguity (from the Latin: “to go both ways”) and that business is full of complexity. It is clear that we are drowning in complexity and that change is constant and even accelerating. Decision making is difficult when the information is unclear or even untrustworthy.
Ambivalence:
From the Latin again: “to be strong in two ways,” and therefore become paralyzed and frozen. Indecisiveness in business and in life drains away urgency and impact. We want more data, we desire more certainty, perhaps even, a form of perfection.
The Antidote:
The three A’s require an inner core of authority if we are to handle them succinctly, imaginatively, and urgently. A couple of truths present themselves:
■ Conformity, dogma […]